Saccharine
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [AU] Sweets attracted sweet people, or so Mami hoped. Even if few people are without a bitter or sour tang.
1. 1

**A/N** : Tomoe's prize for the COM drabblechap comp. Hope you enjoy!

Also written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, e9 - drabble novel with chapters under 500 words

* * *

 **Saccharine  
1.**

Hansel and Gretel were lured into the woods with sweets, but Mami isn't that sort of witch. Rather, she's just the lonely girl trying every magic trick in the book to make some friends.

Then again, she's the girl who crawled out of a burning car and left her parents for dead, even if that's not well known.

She's too sweet to be honest, is what her classmates say behind her back. But she can't be anything better, anything less. Still, that sweetness, those sweets, will attract some sweet children as well, she hopes. No fake niceties like the ones who whisper behind her back, or the ones who do away with politeness completely and sneer at her face.

Then again, Hansel and Gretel locked the witch in the oven and ran so maybe there aren't pure sweet children after all.


	2. 2

**Saccharine  
2.**

Madoka is sweet. She's a year below but the nurse's assistant and is always accompanying the frail new girl in her class. That girl, Akemi Homura, isn't quite as sweet; she's a little bland, actually, but Mami wonders if that's only shyness. She still accepts cake happily.

The nurse's office is a good place to drop off her leftover sweets after school. There are clubs too, but clubs are niche and have no space for her.

Lonely kids who keep winding up in the nurse's office for one reason or another, or those kind enough to always escort them...

And Mami is just like the witch in the forest, isn't she, tempting them with sweets.


	3. 3

**Saccharine**  
3.

None of the other nurse's helpers are as kind as Madoka is. She's always saying hello to Mami, always chatting about happenings in class and out and about her adorable little brother, and Mami is glad for Tatsuya because at least siblings don't come with pangs of pain like everything else.

And maybe Madoka realises that, because she talks more about Tatsuya than anyone else. Still, though, Mami has learnt a lot about the others in her life: her independent mother, her stay at home father, her best friends Sayaka and Hitomi, and Sayaka's other best friend Kyousuke (who, from what Mami can tell, is more of a love interest than a childhood friend), and of course Homura.

And none of the other repeat patients are as docile as Homura... and that's a good thing, in general, because usually those are the kids getting bullied and Mami's not the best upperclassman for a bullied kid to have under their belt. But someone who's constantly sick, who can build up their sweet tooth in the nurse's office and the hospital, who also lives on their own for reasons they don't really want to talk about...

Madoka is sweet, but it's Homura - bland and quiet Homura, who's more like Mami than she likes to admit.


	4. 4

**Saccharine  
** 4.

Somewhere along the line, they cross over from acquaintances into friends. Madoka's little group of misfits, some students call them. The younger ones go quiet when Mami appears, though. She may not be the most popular upperclassman but she's still an upperclassman. And whoever her appearance doesn't silence, Sayaka's fists do.

Sayaka reminds her of Kyouko. She wishes they'd stayed connected, stayed friends. But they'd had too many differences, in the end. Kyouko won't compromise for anyone and friendship is a journey of compromises.

And, of course, some things are too big to compromise on. Mami doesn't think it's wrong to not sacrifice her own life in the name of friendship, or even family... And even if she's alone as a result of that choice, she can't help but be grateful for being alive.

A mother will climb on the body of their child to crawl out of a swamp, after all. And a girl will crawl out of a flaming vehicle to save herself instead of die in her parents' embrace. And friends are less than that. Not bound by blood.

Sweets are enjoyed for a moment and then they're gone.


	5. 5

**Saccharine  
** 5.

They walk home together one afternoon: Mami, Madoka, Sayaka and Homura. Sayaka is unusually quiet. Hitomi is noticably absent. Homura stares awkwardly at her feet. Madoka on the other hand is surprisingly chatty.

Perhaps she's trying to fill the void. Somehow, it's not awkward, or uncomfortable. In fact, she does so good a job that only in retrospect does Mami realise the other oddities.

She bakes an extra special cake the next day, and makes sure Sayaka gets a big piece. It's worth it, to see her grin. It's not worth it to see her eyes linger on Hitoe and, surprisingly, Kyousuke.

That's the bitter taste of a heartbreak. It's still, though, more palatable than a death.


	6. 6

**Saccharine  
** 6.

Mami realises this: Hitomi, for all her grace, has a strong independent side, and Sayaka, for all her brashness, has a thoughtful and hesitant side. That's more or less why Hitomi gets the guy and Sayaka doesn't, even though Sayaka was in a far more opportune position than Hitomi at the offset.

People simply aren't what's written on the tin and it's a realisation she's made when she came away from that burning car without any scars. She realises this when she stretches a smile across her face that people know all too well is fake, but misassume the reasons.

And that's why, no matter how wonderful Madoka is, Mami knows there has to be something she doesn't yet know.


	7. 7

**Saccharine  
7.**

Madoka is the ideal. And a part of Mami can't help but wait for the other shoe to drop... because, really, Madoka is too good to be true.

Of course, the other shoe does drop eventually, but not in the manner Mami thought. Because nice people are cruel underneath and Mami knows this all too well, but Madoka is different.

Madoka runs onto the road to save a kitten and gets herself run over because none of her friends are as alturistic as she is. They run out after her, of course, but they're too slow, too late. Even the strangers, other pedestrians on the road, are quicker. They've called an ambulance and blocked out the road before the rest of them make it to her side.

She's alive, at least, but none of them were able to do anything to help.


	8. 8

**Saccharine  
8.**

She's alive, but she doesn't wake up in the next few days. Mami burns both her wrists cooking most of that time, because she doesn't know anything else. To her surprise, Sayaka spends all that time in her apartment, eating all the sweets (and other things, because one can't just live of sweets) she makes, and it's sad that Madoka's coma is what gives her this opportunity.

After a few days, Homura is there too with an overnight bag. "It's too lonely," she says.

And it is too lonely, because Madoka isn't there, and being surrounded by her other friends makes that absence just much more painful.

Mami was all alone when her parents died. But somehow, that was easier.


	9. 9

**Saccharine  
** 9.

They visit Madoka every day. She changes a little. Grows paler, grows thinner... but at least the scars and bruises fade away, and underneath them the broken bonds become whole. Her eyelids flutter every now and then, and the time they spend in the hospital creeps up once again.

They'd been hiding away in Mami's apartment in the interim and Mami's heart was so full it was about to burst - and that was painful, so painful, more painful than losing the accident and losing her parents to it... but so different as well. Her heart had been empty then, empty like the witch who built her house out of sweets.

It's overflowing now, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she's sure that was the witch's desire as well.

Suddenly, they're all crying. Tears beget tears... but friendship, Madoka's kind of friendship, begets friendship as well.


	10. 10

**Saccharine  
** 10.

Madoka wakes up, and things perk up quickly. Madoka's quick to smile, and her smiles are infectious, even coming from the shallow face and sunken cheeks on that hospital bed. She wipes away all their tears... But Mami wonders where Madoka's tears are, what makes her cry.

She finds out, long after Madoka's out of the hospital, long after Kyouko's whisked back into her life and back out again, taking Sayaka's heart along with her. And it turns out to be a good thing, because with that Sayaka is able to rekindle her relationship with Kyousuke and Hitomi. With that, Sayaka is able to find a spirit who will drag her vivaciousness out of her.

It's a happy end, they all think. And then Homura collapses, and they remember that real life tales don't have ends after all.

And Mami finally learns what it is that can make Madoka cry.


	11. 11

**Saccharine  
** 11.

Homura is fine. It's her heart condition again, but Madoka takes it the hardest of all of them.

Perhaps it's because Madoka was much worse off. Perhaps it's because the rest of them have gone through this once before. Or perhaps it's because they've held her on a pedestral all this time. She's a beautiful angel, but in this world angels are only human too, and Madoka's weakness is that she can't bear the bitterness of this world, and that's how she's able to drag out their smiles.

She's turned her despair, her weakness, into power. But against some things, like nature, like a condition not even the current advances in medicine can fully fix, she's powerless. And in the face of that, she crumbles.

And just as her smile lights up others, her gloom drags them down. But Mami is familiar with that gloom. So is Sayaka. Homura looks between the two of them, and at their friends and family who are so much more subdied. But just being able to withstand that charismatic gloom is one thing. What can she do about it? Mami wonders.


	12. 12

**Saccharine  
** 12.

In the end, it is Sayaka who decides; Sayaka who marches up and says her piece, much like Kyouko did to Mami long ago, after her parents died. But there'd been no-one beside either of them then. Just wo friends whose friendship had crumbled in the face of adversity.

Now there's a group of them and they've all shown their ugly sides, their weak sides, in some manner or other. Maybe they haven't pierced it all together yet. Maybe they have. It doesn't matter; they're all exposed anyway, and shouldn't they have been exposed the moment they came out of the womb, as well?

Mami wonders if her mother knew she would crawl away from a burning car instead of reach for her hand.

She also wonders if Madoka's mother knew Madoka would run out in front of a car with no regard for her own life to save a cat.

Alturistic, she'd said at the time. Too alturistic. But Homura points out the fallacy in that. Madoka is only human; she can't save everyone. Maybe scan snatch a roadkill away from the road but she can't stop nature, and she can't stop illnesses, and she can't prevent every preventable thing no matter how much power she gains.

So Mami brainstorms, Homura pierces it all together, and Sayaka takes the neatly wrapped package, turns it into a kendo sword, and whacks Madoka over the head with it.

Metaphorically, of course. Her words are jaded and sharp and just as effective as a wooden sword.


	13. 13

**Saccharine  
** 13.

It's not wrong to want to live. It's not wrong to want others to live either. It's not wrong to want friends. It's not wrong to put your best foot forward looking for them, and it's not wrong to not wear your heart on your sleeves because you're afraid of people stomping on them.

Mami isn't wrong for trying to survive. Madoka isn't wrong for trying to save someone. It just can't always be done. That's an ideal world, a dreamer's world, that doesn't exist. And it's all fine to dream but they live in a world that's far crueller than such dreams.

Mami knows this. Madoka knows this as well. And Sayaka and Homura too. They all know. And maybe more demons will crawl out of their hiding places, but they're still here now, weathering the demons that have already danced.

She's not a lonely witch in a forest with a house made of sweets. Rather, she's the witch whose fellow witches visit for a tea party.


End file.
